Snow

The amount of snow we are getting is putting my new-found love of winter to the test. 

Chocolate Sheet Cake

Adele came up to me, pointing at Ree Drummond's chocolate sheet cake recipe and asked, "Mom. I'm bored. Can I make this?" 

Of course, I said, "Yes."

After it had cooled a little, we cut big pieces and ate it and watched Bill Cosby's skit about giving his kids chocolate cake for breakfast. 

And then, full confession, she and I had some of this cake for breakfast the next day. 

(It's better the second day because the frosting sets and crystalizes. Wow!)

Turnipseed Sisters' Loaf

I'm making a bread that rises with hops starter instead of traditional packaged yeast. 

In a previous post, I explained that I had to make the hops starter with liquid steeped from hops flowers, mashed potatoes, corn meal, etc. 

This concoction sat out on my counter in a warm spot until it got bubbly. 

This took more than 24 hours; It actually took two days! 

Once it was bubbly, I transferred it to a jar with a tight-fitting lid and left it in the fridge until the liquid separated from the solids (as instructed by the recipe). 

Once that happened, I mixed the liquids and solids together again, added a cup of this starter to flour, salt, sugar, etc. and left it out on the counter overnight to create what is called a sponge. 

This is the first bread I've made that required a sponge, so I didn't know what to expect. The recipe said it would be bubbly. 

In the morning, this is what the sponge looked like. 

To this sponge, I mixed in more flour and some lard then kneaded the dough for several minutes by hand. 

Then I left the dough to rise for the first time in a bowl for a little more than two hours. (It takes longer for bread rising without traditional yeast to rise, apparently.) 

Then I split the dough into two lumps and shaped them into loaves and placed them in pans. 

I let the loaves rise another two hours until they were coming over the top of the pans. 

I baked them as directed and... Beautiful! 

They smell amazing! 

I can't wait to taste them! 

Potato Rolls and Hopps Starter

Amazing things are happening in my kitchen today. 

Adele and I both had plans that required baked mashed potatoes. 

So we started our day baking potatoes. 

Then, Adele used the potatoes to make homemade potato rolls... 

to go with the meatloaf and carrots she is making (under benevolent supervision) for dinner tonight. 

Wow! 

(Adele is often so busy in our kitchen now that I am somewhat relegated to sous chef/ dihswasher, but I can't say I mind.)

It's a joy to watch her and advise her when needed. 

And I get to eat what she makes. 

Today, I also made hopps starter with my portion of the morning's baked potatoes. 

This is a mixture of a "hopps tea" made from dry hopps flowers steeped like tea, then strained, then some of the "tea" is boiled with cornmeal, then all of everything is mixed in a big bowl with mashed potatoes, sugar and salt... 

this ferments on my counter in a warm spot for at least twenty four hours...

before mellowing in the fridge for a few days... 

before I stir it and use it to make the next bread in Bernard Clayton's Complete Book of Bread. 

Like I said, amazing things are happening here! 

Art and Design

Avril's taking Around the World Through Art and Design with Delightful Art Co. this year. 

This is a recent project done in the style of Australian dot art. 

The girls have taken Delight Art Co. classes for years. 

And their skills have grown year by year. 

These art classes been a great way to infuse our Classical homeschool curriculum with beauty and vitality. 

Your Best Friend's Recipes

I was at my BFF's house while she was making dinner, so her recipe box was out and open and I had occasion to flip trough it. 

I took pics of some recipes that sounded good to me. 

Flipping through a best friend's recipe box is great idea that I can't believe I hadn't thought to do before then. 

What a great way to get some new ideas! 

Cooking and Baking in Our Homeschool

Adele has discovered cookbooks. 

And it's wonderful! 

She and I both enjoy reading them, and sometimes we actually read them together while sitting on the couch or table. 

Last week, she made the most delicious scones any of us had ever tasted. 

She also made sugar cookies (not shown here, but I can still remember the taste of them if I close my eyes.) 

She also made lemon eclairs- Twice!

Eclairs! 

What I love about Adele is that she's only thirteen, so in her mind, anything is possible as she reads these cookbooks. 

She doesn't have to work through failures/ baggage I've have to work through to try more difficult recipes. 

She just goes for it, and it usually ends up alright.  

So her attitude is very inspiring to an old cook like me. 

We're not eating everything she makes ourselves. 

We have had several occasions to share her baked goods with friends at church or dinners or parties.  

Now she wants to make meatloaf. This is thanks to Ree Drummond's cookbook with the most enticing, mouth-watering photographs. 

So I plan to let her help me make dinner one night this coming week. 

Her sister, Avril, can cook, too, of course. 

In fact, Avril's cooking the bacon in the oven for tonight's "breakfast for dinner."

But, Adele is the one really passionate about baking and cooking right now, and she's cranking out the goodies daily. 

And we all really appreciate this. 

I started making the girls bake/ cook several months back. 

I'd literally assign them a recipe as part of their homeschool day. 

And obviously, I'd give them the time to do it. 

I'd start with simpler things like a box brownie or muffin mix or a simple from scratch recipe like no-bake, nut-butter energy  balls. 

With repetition of those simpler recipes, they both gained confidence and competence and they can do harder things now. 

Like eclairs! 

And now that Adele has some skill and she has discovered the potential inside the pages of my cookbooks... 

Magical things are happening here! 

Buttermilk Bread

       I made bread #8 from Bernard Clayton's Complete Book of Breads- Buttermilk Bread. 

This was a second try, and this batch of bread came out beautiful.  

The first time I made this bread, I was working after dinner, the dough wasn't rising quickly, and I did not have time to let the loaves rise all the way up out of the pans before I put them in the oven. So I cut the second rise short in order to have time to bake the loaves before bed. And so those first loaves came out of the oven the way they went into the oven- flat.

But they were delicious, so I was motivated to give it a second try and see what I could improve. 

This time, I was up before dawn, so I got started early. Taking notes from the previous loaves, I found some ways to improve rise time in my winter kitchen. I used a dough warmer for the first rise. Then I put the loaves in their pans on the top of the toaster oven set on low for the second rise. With the help of the added warmth from these kitchen devices, the risings went quicker. And I had time to wait for these leaves to rise well over the tops of their pans before baking... 

Beautiful! 

 

Greek Koulari

Almost every day we were in Greece, I had a koulari, a sesame bread round. I ate it for breakfast or for a snack, always with a cup of strong coffee. 

I so enjoyed koulari, in fact, I was sad to come home, because I may never have it again. But then I wondered if I could learn to make these for myself someday. 

I have been doing a lot of bread-making as I bake my way through Bernard Clayton's Complete Book of Breads. So I have gained knowledge and skills (and weight) that I didn't have a few months ago when I first dreamed of making koulari for myself. 

I found a recipe online yesterday, and it was actually easy to follow, and I had all the ingredients and equipment, because of all I had learned through bread making. 

And it was fun! 

The girls pitched in, especially Adele, who loves to cook and bake. 

We made traditional koulari with sesame seeds, but then we ran out of sesame seeds, so we also made a few rounds with Everything Seasoning. 

Everything Seasoning has white and black sesame seeds, along with other delicious salts and spices. Avril and Adele actually ended up preferring the koulari bread with Everything Seasoning. 

This homemade koulari is delicious! Especially since it came to me fresh and from my own oven! 

I'm so grateful to be able to enjoy koulari at home in Connecticut of the USA.

Even though it's the middle of winter here, I can close my eyes, bite into this bread, and it takes me right back to Greece and its constant warm breezes. 

 

Creamy Eggs

Adele and I made creamy eggs for breakfast today. 

We adapted a recipe from Jessica Fisher's Good Cheap Eats: Dinner in 30 Minutes or Less!

We greased our ramekins, added a tablespoon of heavy cream to the bottom of each, then cracked two whole eggs into the bottom of each. Then we added a bit of cooked bacon, chopped, that we had left in the fridge, shredded cheddar cheese, and green onions. 

We put the ramekins on a baking sheet (just in case they bubbled over.) We baked these at 350 degrees for 25 minutes. The whites were hard and the yolks were firm but still soft enough to smear on toasts.

These were amazing! 

We'll definitely have them again! 

These would also make a nice brunch for weekends or breakfast-for-dinner idea. 

Sourdough Cont.

With temps in the single digits here, my sourdough wasn't quick to rise. So I gave it more time. +

I also turned on the oven and put the dough on the stovetop, so it had a warmer environment. +

The colder environment created a tighter boule with more tension. +

I also used a banneton for my second rise this time, 

so it had the beautiful, concentric circles on the bread. +

And when I scoured, I kept the razor almost horizontal this time. +

= 

one beautiful loaf! 

And many things learned in one day! 

Learning Chemistry at Home

Avril's doing Chemistry in our homeschool this year. 

We use Apologia's text. 

She reads one module (or chapter) every one or two weeks, and she completes all the On Your Own Questions for every module. 

She or I or both of us together will check her answers to the On Your Own questions in her notebook with the text's answer key, and then she makes corrections as needed until she gets all the right answers. 

But she usually has very little corrections to make, because she read the material carefully to begin with. 

How quickly I make her move through the modules depends on how much time we have, which depends on how much vacation we've been taking. 

Right now, she's reading one module a week for the next few weeks to make quicker progress through the text, since we just took a few weeks off of school to go to Florida. 

I make her choose one lab from each module to complete. She gathers the materials and/or tells me what she needs if it isn't in our homeschool closet or kitchen. 

She makes a record of each lab and the results in a lab journal that I assess every week. 

She's using the same lab journal she used for Biology last year. 

I don't really believe in tests for Chemistry, so I don't make her take them. 

It's more important to me that she learns the virtue of steadily reading and working through the huge text and completing all the assignments and labs to gain and demonstrate comprehensive understanding of the subject. 

I want her to learn how to learn a subject like Chemistry as much as I want her to learn Chemistry.  

And I'm certain that since she's actually steadily working through the material, she's learning it. 

I can't tell you how often in public high school, I passed a class like Chemistry having never read the textbook or engaged with the material much with my own mind, but rather, the expert teacher lectured and gave tests on the lecture notes, and I just passed those tests on the notes and forgot everything before the next test.  

So I never really learned Chemistry. 

I believe I would have been better served by a Chemistry textbook and consistent time and quiet to read it and let the information become a real part of my soul.

So, Avril's grade, at the end of this year, will be based on whether or not she did all the reading and questions and assigned labs, whether or not she actually did the very personal work of learning Chemistry. 

She will, most likely, get an A, because she doesn't move to the next module until she has completed all the reading, questions, and labs and gotten the right answers to the one before. 

Homeschooling through a subject like Chemistry doesn't take an expert; It isn't rocket science. 

It just takes consistent reading and engagement with the outstanding Chemistry textbook we have.  

Mastery of anything, even Chemistry, usually comes easily enough if you are simply willing to show up and actually do the work.